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Topic: A Tale of Two Sicilians (Read 11287 times)

After a couple of attempts at Sicilian pizza this has been my best one yet. Previous attempts were too bready, and not quite as thick as I wanted. I used Marco’s recipe as a guide found here- http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1073.0.html . Again this was a guide here is the formula I used for 2 9x9 pans-

Flour KAAP- 100%Water-75%IDY-1%EVOO-5%TF-.14 Bowl Residue -1.5%

I made a polish w/ 100% water, 75% flour, and 30% IDY all very cold and refrigerated for 12 hours. I let some of the chill come off the mixed the rest of the dry ingredients, and finally the EVOO. Side note-if you aren’t comfortable working with very wet dough dial down the hydration. I kneaded this batch entirely by hand because it was so wet, and my KA 600 is a bit big for this amount of dough.After an hour or so I split into 2 and placed them in 9x9 pans w/ 1.5 T of oil in them, lightly pressed them out and put them in the cold oven for another hour. When it was time to bake I preheated the oven to 500, and put the dough in the fridge while the oven preheated for 30-40 min (I read that this helped w/ oven spring). Topped 2 different ways w/ 6in1 sauce, whole milk mozz, oregano, and sausage on one.

I’m used to a 2-3 day old dough and the way it tastes, but this crust was very good. I got the texture and “poof” pretty much right, but will give it a couple days bulk ferment in the fridge next time for taste.

Since Marco only posted one recipe in the thread you referenced, I believe the direct link to his post is http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1073.msg9752.html#msg9752. (To get that link, all you have to do is click on the icon to the left of the title of the post. That will put the address for the post in the address bar, which can then be incorporated into another post by copy and paste.)

Really Nice Jeff!!As soon as I get done eating turkey I plan to try the cracker on this site then some type of deep dish Sicilian after that The indoor oven is more controlled ad common so I will experiment all winter til the first fire of spring On a brick or rack? Never removed from pan right and How much oil in pan? Thanks,

Jeff, those are looking great! Unfortunately, now I am really hungry. Those outside cooked edges really indicate to me that those are really "right": it's that think bit of crispiness on the outside of a Sicilian pizza that defines it for me (along with dollops of sauce on top).

Great job, and I look forward to shamelessly ripping off your recipe to try for myself at home.

I'm thinking about giving this a try. Actually I have the poolish in the fridge right now.

I do have two questions though I hope someone can help me out on:

1) should there be any salt, or is this an error? Marco's recipe (from Pete-zza's link) specifies 2.5% salt.2) My scale isn't sensitive enough to weigh yeast. I prefer the tsp-type measurements. How much yeast (IDY) and salt is being called for here? BTW, I am making the recipe with the 1000g flour + 750g water quantities from the original post.

Since you are in Canada, you may need to adjust the amount of Kosher salt that Jeff quoted if you are using another brand, such as Diamond Crystal. If you are using the Windsor brand, you may want to check the labeling information to calculate the proper conversion based on the weight (2.5 grams) used in Jeff's recipe.

I will take Jeff's original comment and give it an extra day or two bulk refrigeration.

I'm also a little unclear on how much dough the 1000g/750g mix will yield. I have a 9x9 and a 9x13 pan to fill. Also how thick did you lay out the dough in the oiled pan? Looks like you ended up with a final thickness of about 0.5 to 0.75 inches.

Jeff can check my work on this, but it he used a thickness factor of 0.14 and a bowl residue compensation of 1.5%, to make enough dough for two 9" x 9" pans, using the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html, I get the following:

If Josh has already made a preferment with 1000 grams of flour and 750 grams of water

Josh is going to be eatling lots of pizza, hopefully you have a big family!

Peter,

You are correct, and thanks for taking the time to scale the formula. It's getting to be that time of year for me to do more work on these...

Josh,

When you get used to working with the dough calculator it becomes really easy to scale recipes for all sorts of different situations. In my case for two 9x9 pans I just had to cut the single dough ball in half to get the "right" thickness and amount of dough in the pan, because that's the thickness I plugged in the calculator. Make sense? They are a great tool.

I took this dough out of the fridge this morning to weight it to compare against Peter's calculations, and Jeff you're right this is a very wet dough. Difficult trying to weigh such an unyielding blob.

In any case, did you par-bake the crust at all? I know for some other thick crust pizzas I've made, especially those in a pan, I've found that I've needed to.

Then divide the final dough into the two dough batch sizes for your two pans. For the remaining (unused) part of your preferment, you will have to use the expanded dough calculating tool to figure out how to adapt it to the sizes of your pans. As noted previously, you will need 326.31 grams of dough for your 9" x 9" pan, and 471.34 grams of dough for your 9" x 13" pan. The math should keep you busy for a while .

Actually, I used equal amounts of flour and water (in case that wasn't clear) 750g of each, plus about 1 tsp of IDY. I chilled this for about 12 hours (per Jeff's instruction), and then added 250g flour, 1.74T kosher salt, and 3.7T EVOO, and 2.2t IDY. This has been sitting in my fridge overnight.

I weighed it this morning and it was 1650g. Less than the 1835g you calculated, but I had quite a bit of bowl and hook residue, due to the wetness.

By my math, I can split the dough in two, and fill the 9x9 and 9x13 today, and do it all over again tomorrow